


Constellations.

by orange_crushed



Series: Today, your barista 'verse [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-27
Updated: 2013-06-27
Packaged: 2017-12-16 09:03:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/860367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orange_crushed/pseuds/orange_crushed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"We're the camp perverts," Dean stage-whispers, as he takes the tent down. Cas is shirtless with sunglasses on. He looks incredibly fucking delighted with himself. Incidentally, he also looks like a sexy beach cop. Dean tries not to think about Baywatch and CPR and Cas running down the sand with a boogie board, but then also: sunscreen, salt, getting sand in the soft depressions behind his knees. Fuck Dean's life. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Constellations.

"You said, and I quote," says Sam, with one finger in the air like a punctuation mark, Future Public Defenders Club, " _tea is girl coffee_."

"I'm allowed to change my mind," Dean hisses. He holds the mug up to his face and feels the steam hit his chin, roll into his pores like a cloud. It's like a miniature hot shower, a towel out of the dryer. It makes his face feel soft and rubbery. Plus, it smells like heaven: tea leaves, jasmine and cardamom, incredibly local honey. He's actually met the bees. And yes, he knows what cardamom is, now. It's some kind of fucking plant. 

"I'm the one who _likes_ tea," Sam continues. "You made fun of me for _years_ because I wouldn't just shut up and drink the same sludge as you." His nose is wrinkled up like a dog's, and Dean wants badly to tease him about it, but maybe this is a moment to concede gracefully, to show off how balanced and mature and shit he's been feeling lately. To be the bigger man. Not literally. He hasn't actually been the bigger man since eleventh grade. And thinking about eleventh grade reminds him of the Dodgeball Incident, and the Dodgeball Incident reminds him of the Frog Thing. Thoughts of the Frog Thing inevitably lead to Prankpocalypse 2011, and suddenly what he was going to say- _maybe you're right Sammy, I was harsh on you_ \- morphs slowly into:

"I'm still making fun of you," he says, putting his pinky in the air. "Dame Judi Dench."

"You're the worst," Sam tells him, and moves to another table.

The cafe is quiet- except for the sound of Sam's emotions leaking out in a series of long-suffering sighs- and Dean lets the warmth of the mug seep into his hands, up his wrists, until it sends an involuntary shudder along his arms, into his spine. It feels fucking fantastic. There's sunlight filtering in the windows, springtime light that's still a bit cool and blue, where late June's light will be hot gold and blistering. No work, no plans, no demands. Just a lazy Saturday morning, a short stack of paperback novels at Dean's elbow (a couple of Chandlers and a Vonnegut he hasn't read yet- something about a painter- all stolen from Cas's milk-crate library) and Cas behind the counter in a starched apron, working the espresso machine with a pleased, private smile on his face. One that's been there all morning, from the minute Dean walked in. Dean doesn't know what exactly put it there. It could be the weather- beautiful- or Cas's little colony- thriving- but Dean suspects it's actually something else. Like the Grade A USDA Choice blowjob Cas got before he left Dean's bed for work this morning. Dean considers it a personal best, a stunning achievement, but he understands why Cas didn't want him to mark it as such on the kitchen calendar. It's not yet a recognized national holiday. Dean watches Cas work for a while, and then buries himself in the Vonnegut. He doesn't understand all the parts about painting, not really, but he's seen pictures like those in the city museum: big plain canvases with two colors in streaks, jagged lines or straight ones, big mute blocks that have never really said anything to Dean, never given anything up. But maybe, he thinks, that's it after all: _“What's the point of being alive," she said, "if you're not going to communicate?”_ He looks across the tables at Sam, who is engrossed in something on his laptop screen. He stares at Sam until Sam looks up. "What?" Sam asks, suspiciously. Okay, that's fair.

"Sorry," says Dean. Sam narrows his eyes. "For being a tea jerk," Dean clarifies. At last Sam manages to close his flapping fish mouth, and is silent for a long minute.

"Um," says Sam. "Thanks?"

"No problem," Dean says, raising his mug in a salute. He's like, a perfect brother. He can learn and grow and share and whatnot. He's nothing if not magnanimous, a word he recently learned means _being classy as hell, even to losers_. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches Cas watching him, and wonders how much of that exchange he caught. Well, being a responsible grownup is sexy, right? Dean waggles his eyebrows seductively and licks his spoon. 

"Didn't you drop that on the floor?" says Cas.

"Gross," says Sam.

"God made dirt, you dicks," says Dean. He should trade them both for a fucking puppy. Something that would appreciate him for existing and never comment on the many places he's left his wet towels behind. But then he'd have to pick up crap with a plastic bag, and he's getting enough crap as is it.

At noon Cas brings him a sandwich- turkey and avocado on whole-wheat flaxseed bread and something called _frisee_ , the Lord is testing Dean. But he takes a bite of it anyway and finds that it's really really good, and the avocado doesn't gross him out, and Cas smiles at him over the counter while he finishes it. Sam looks like he's trying really hard not to make asshole comments about Dean's sophisticated palate, but Dean's ignoring him in favor of eating the last little fluffy bits of lettuce on his plate. Dean has the uncomfortable suspicion that Cas could serve him pickled ham between two slices of twinkie and he'd try to like it. After a while, Sam stretches and gets up and starts packing his laptop and books away. He leans over Dean's table and says, _see you later_. Dean salutes him. And then it's just him and Cas and a handful of regulars reading their magazines and trying to keep their kids from tipping the sugar jars over. Dean reads another twenty pages in the Vonnegut, and then slides his nine-coffees-tenth-coffee-free card between the pages. Not like he needs a coupon for free coffee anymore. He goes to lean against the counter and watches Cas tip a fresh batch of muffins out of their tins. Cas offers him one. "I knew it," says Dean, chewing a mouthful of blueberry goodness. "You're fattening me up. To go on the menu. Free-range Dean."

"Hmm," says Cas. His eyes go from Dean's face down to his belly, and back up again, and Dean feels his gaze like a pair of hands trailing his skin. It sends a hot flush up his neck.

"Ease up there, Anthony Hopkins," he says, crossing his arms over his stomach. "I was kidding. I'm not edible." Cas smirks. Oh. Right. His entendre-meter must be in the fucking shop. Cas's pretty eyes laugh at him, but then he puts another muffin in a white paper bag for Dean, and leans over the counter to kiss his stubbly Saturday-morning cheek. Dean pretends to endure it, but Dean's heart does a weird little backflip, like a fish jumping for a mosquito. Suddenly, he feels like fleeing. He's got to get out of here before he says some embarrassing shit: _I love your muffins_ , maybe. I like sandwich. _You're my honey farmer_. Jesus Christ, what is wrong with him? "Um," he says, rubbing his chest absently with one hand. "Later?"

"Later," Cas says, a promise.

Dean scrams.

 

 

Monday is a huge pile of bullshit: the computers go down and Dean spends all day manually checking records and making orders and dealing with people who do not understand the simple fucking concept of _the computer is down_. Garth has it fixed by Tuesday morning, but it's down again Tuesday afternoon, and that involves a drawn-out phone call with their internet provider and a brutal run to Radio Shack that Dean hopes never to repeat. For one thing, Garth likes the Sweet Sound of the Seventies on 102.5, and knows all the words to _Whenever I Call You Friend_. Most damningly, he showed no compunctions about singing the Kenny Loggins half expressively in Dean's direction, like he expected Dean to pick up the Stevie Nicks parts. It took every ounce of Dean's willpower not to drive them both off a bridge.

On Wednesday Dean gets a "final bill" from the gas company, and has a fifteen-minute argument with a customer service rep who finally figures out that 112 Ridley Drive is not the same thing as 112 Ripley Drive, and that Dean is not a woman named Karli who cancelled her service two weeks ago. 

"I am a man," Dean says, frustrated. "A man who needs his goddamned gas on, okay?"

On Thursday, their ancient refrigerator finally decides it's time to return to the Great Refrigerator Gods in the sky, and dies unceremoniously just after breakfast. Dean takes all the leftovers and Sam's expensive cheeses with him to work, and shoves everything he can into the mini-fridge in the office. The rest of the day is like being in a food triage tent, deciding what can and can't be saved from their pile of tupperware containers. He eats yesterday's meatloaf and a taco from Wednesday and the last of Tuesday's pasta and thinks dark, sad, bloated thoughts. Then he looks at refrigerator prices online, and has to spend ten minutes with his face resting on his keyboard. "Why do refrigerators have touch-screens now?" he asks Cas later, slumped over the arm of the sofa, Cas making reassuring noises and stroking that awesome spot where Dean's skull meets his spine. Dean closes his eyes and tries to melt into it. "Why would I need to touch my refrigerator like that?"

"It's a mystery," Cas says. And then, more thoughtfully: "Dean?"

"Mmph."

"Do you have vacation left?" Dean thinks about it. He hasn't actually taken a vacation day- or a sick day, for that matter- for as long as he can remember. When was the last time? Maybe Sam's graduation from state college? They'd rented a cabin and had all of Sam's undergrad friends up there for a blowout, and Dean had taken off Thursday to Monday. But anything since then? He doesn't think so. Maybe a half-day to deal with the cable company.

"Lots," says Dean. He cracks one eye at Cas. "Why?"

"Have you ever been to Yellowstone?"

"Like, Yogi Bear Yellowstone?" Dean asks. "No, never." He turns around to really look at Cas, who has a slightly demented look on his face, like he's had the best idea ever and wants Dean to get in on the ground floor. "You want to go to Yellowstone? Like, right now?"

"No, not right now," says Cas. "Tomorrow." 

They don't leave the next day, but that is how Dean ends up in Cas's battered Jeep at seven a.m. on Saturday morning, holding a map in his hands and feeling vaguely like he's been tricked into something. They have a full cooler in the back seat and an old tent of Bobby's and a camp stove and a bunch of shit that Cas took from his own trailer. Bobby gave him the tent and warned him not to fucking come back before the fifteenth, and practically shoved Dean out the door of the office. Even Sam was enthusiastic, and loaned him a pair of binoculars and a GPS and then tried to talk to him about some granola-munching shit called geocaching. Dean is starting to wonder if this trip wasn't some sort of group conspiracy. With Cas as the humming, happy mastermind. He glances across the seat at Cas in his shiny pilot-looking sunglasses, looks at his unbrushed hair and his ugly printed shirt and his bare hairy knees showing under the hem of his shorts. Cas looks over, smiles, and looks back to the road, and Dean thinks, _oh my God_. It has the force of a physical hit, a blow. It pounds him in the center of the chest for a second, and then releases. 

"I- thank you," Dean says. It comes out a little too quiet. He knows it doesn't sound like a thank-you, not a normal one. He knows what he wants it to sound like, the real words he hopes Cas will hear. Hopefully Cas is psychic. Cas switches lanes, and then puts his hand over Dean's knee. Dean stares at that hand. _Totally psychic_ , he thinks. Holy crap.

"You're welcome," Cas says.

 

 

They make it to the park in a couple of days, switching off the driving. Dean has decided he doesn't so much hate Cas's Jeep as he wants to take it apart piece by piece and then set it on fire to make sure it never rises again. 

"You just have to get used to it," Cas tells him, when using the turn signal activates the windshield wipers again. Cas, of course, knows all the bullshit games his crossed-wire deathtrap car plays, and so he doesn't look like a complete moron whenever he takes the wheel. He shows Dean how to work the radio without tripping the cigarette lighter. "It takes a light touch," he explains. Dean fantasizes about lightly touching all the Jeep windows with a crowbar until he feels better.

They camp the first night with all the rest of the tourists, sandwiched between somebody's Ford Giganto-tron and an RV with an enormous flatscreen television bolted to the wall. It plays reruns of _I Love Lucy_ late into the night, but they're both too tired to worry about it. Dean falls asleep hard and fast to the sound of canned laughter and the distant croaking of frogs. He dreams that he's paddling down the river in a canoe, using only one arm, so that the canoe goes around and around in circles. When he wakes up, he's dizzy and a little sweaty. Beside him, Cas snuffles awake, wiping his face on the back of Dean's t-shirt like a cat itching its whiskers. Dean rolls over so that Cas's head is under his chin, and Cas slings his naked thigh over Dean's and says, "Want to scandalize the neighbors?" in a low chuckle. His laughter rumbles against Dean's chest, and he's obviously happy to see Dean, because he hasn't exactly got any pockets on. Dean kisses him and kisses him until he's dizzy again, while Cas's wandering hands slip under the waistband of his boxers. Cas's warm fingers close around him, thumbing over the tip leisurely, sweetly, and Dean's head slams back, sending up fireworks and tweeting bluebirds, and then Cas slides down, intent, and the whole world goes technicolor around him. He tries not to make noise- he really fucking does, but Holy God, it's difficult- but by the time they make it out of the tent with pants on, the people in the RV have locked the door and put the blinds down. 

"We're the camp perverts," Dean stage-whispers, as he takes the tent down. Cas is shirtless with sunglasses on. He looks incredibly fucking delighted with himself. Incidentally, he also looks like a sexy beach cop. Dean tries not to think about _Baywatch_ and CPR and Cas running down the sand with a boogie board, but then also: sunscreen, salt, getting sand in the soft depressions behind his knees. Fuck Dean's life. Fuck the neighbors. Dean shoves the tent back into its tote bag and slings it into the car. They move and then park the car and hike in for miles, with Dean's GPS and a map Cas took from the ranger station. Cas got them a backcountry camping pass, which Dean had never heard of. "You need a permit to camp in the woods?" Dean had asked, incredulous. "It's the _woods_."

"It's a national park, Dean," Cas explains. "The first of its kind, technically. Federal law states-"

"Okay," says Dean. "I get the picture. No candy wrappers. No feeding the animals. Only I can prevent forest fires."

"The land was dedicated in 1872," Cas goes on, stubborn, with his hands hooked into his backpack straps and his chin pointing resolutely upwards. "Grant was President." Cas tells him about the first railway station to open near the park, and about the thirty thousand roaming elk, and the petrified trees that they are very probably going to walk through tomorrow. Dean listens and asks questions and eventually they stop for a while and eat protein bars ("Ugh," says Dean) and drink from one of the canteens. It is incredibly quiet at first, except for the sound of their chewing, and the faint churning sound of water from somewhere in the valley below. But as they sit Dean can hear it, bit by bit, like an orchestra starting up one player at a time. The soft rushing noise of wind in the grass, and the creak of branches as they yield and spring back. Rustling in the bushes and overhead: squirrels clambering upwards and birds taking wing. Songs and chirps and shrill echoes, insects droning too close to his ears, his own pulse still hammering a little from the climb. Cas watches him silently, and then stares out over the valley for a long time. Dean closes his eyes and listens. He can almost hear the sizzling warmth of the sun as it hits his upturned face, his shoulders. It soaks him to the bone. And then, after a while, Cas's hand is against his cheek, knuckles grazing his jaw, a brief touch that's more kiss than caress. "Ready?" he asks.

"Ready," says Dean. He shoulders his bag and stands. They keep walking and walking and walking, and all of Dean's illusions of being the fit one are erased by the easy way Cas takes hills and beckons Dean to keep up. That night their campsite is truly in the middle of nowhere, with their food triple-bagged and tied onto a pole a hundred meters away. 

"Bears have incredible olfactory abilities," Cas says, very seriously, like Dean's going to strenuously object to keeping all the Pringles on lockdown, but Dean doesn't need any persuading on that topic. Dean's personal bravado does not extend to five-hundred-pound carnivores. He'd feel a hell of a lot better with his dad's old twelve-gauge in the tent, but oh well. They lie together in the dark but there's something keeping them both awake; the adrenaline of the hike or the altitude or something else Dean can't put his finger on. They climb out into the cooler air, lying on their backs on one unzipped sleeping bag. It's cold enough that Dean's arms break out in gooseflesh, but not so cold that they bother starting a fire. There are hardly any mosquitoes to speak of. It's pleasant to lie there in silence and stare up into the sky, which is clear and cloudless, as if it were a pane of glass wiped clean. A dark mirror with no back, reflecting endlessly. As Dean's eyes adjust, more stars come into view. They appear as faint pinpricks and as sprays of light, scattered carelessly, here and there making themselves into patterns that seem more or less familiar. Dean makes an effort to hold himself perfectly still, so that he can actually see the world turning, the stars circling, the earth tilting in its course. It's probably impossible. But he tries. "Do you know any?" Cas asks, in a murmur, after a while. "Constellations?"

"I know the big dipper," Dean says, pointing. His hand moves a fraction. "And around that is the bear. Ursa Major. The thing that wants to eat our sandwiches." He feels Cas smile into his shoulder. "I can find the north star. That's about it. You?" Cas shifts a little and then points up. 

"That's Virgo." Dean follows up with his eyes. "And Libra."

"Sam was a space nut for a little while," Dean says. "He memorized all kinds of stuff about how far we are from Mercury and how many moons Saturn has and everything. I bet if I scraped the walls in his room, I'd find some of those old glow in the dark stickers."

"Ah," says Cas. 

"It was dinosaurs before that," Dean tells him. "And marine biology after. Every kid in the nineties thought they were going to study dolphins."

"Hmm," says Cas, like he agrees. But Dean knows better. Dean is starting to be able to interpret the hmms. It's a weird _hmm_ , like _I'm choosing not to say something out loud_. Cas does this sometimes, when Dean talks about Sam. Or Bobby. Or the one time Dean ever told Cas anything about his mom. Really, it's any time Dean talks about family, about the past. Something Cas never, ever does. It's starting to be weird. And as much as Dean hates to dig in this direction- in any direction that involves emotions and having them- Dean also doesn't like feeling like a coward. Like tip-toeing around the problem, pretending it's not there. And so Dean sucks it up and says:

"How about you?" He tries to make it sound incredibly casual. "Astronaut? Archaeologist? Seal trainer?" Dean is only human, so he does not berate himself for smiling at the thought of Cas in a wetsuit at Sea World, trying to get a water mammal to balance a ball on its nose. "What did you want to be when you grew up?" There is a silence then that's unlike the quiet before; Dean knows he's holding his breath and mentally smacks himself for it. Casual, his ass. There is a huge gap left hanging after the end of that question, and every second the gulf seems wider and wider. There's hardly a croak, a chirp, a rustle. It feels like even the frogs and insects have fucked off and left Dean here all alone in the wilderness with the can of worms he just cracked open. But then Cas sighs and fits himself closer into Dean's side, and maybe Dean hasn't ruined everything after all, and tomorrow Cas might not leave him here with the bears to die.

"I wanted to be my father," Cas says. "Until I found out what my father was really like." Cas's mouth takes on a bitter little twist. "In case it's not clear, he's a complete fucking asshole."

"Oh," says Dean. Well, if that don't take the cake. The universe is a funny place, putting two people with the exact same problem onto the top of a mountain together. 

"Sorry," says Cas.

"No," Dean says. "No, it's fine. It's totally fine." He squeezes Cas's shoulder, and wonders what the fuck to say. And so finally he says, "Funny thing is," and then he says, surprising even himself, "me too."

"Oh," says Cas, thoughtfully, like an echo. More silence. And then Dean feels a giddy lightness come over him, like he just dropped a heavy bag off his shoulder and now he's looking down at it, thinking, I carried that garbage around with me all day? It seems so huge in his mind sometimes, the Bullshit Of Dean Winchester, and other times it seems like the fluff of a sprouting dandelion, like something that should be blown away in a stiff breeze. For the moment, he doesn't care. Whatever tomorrow or next week brings, right now, he is lying on his back in the woods with the sky wheeling over him, and something absolutely fucking fantastic in his arms, in his grasp. He has four more days until he has to go back to work, and another fifty-odd years to live, and a brother, and a house, and blood in his veins. He is not as afraid of bears as he thought he was. He is in love. Dean summons up all his courage and rolls onto his side and Cas watches him like sunflowers watch the sky, face open and willing and waiting.

"You," Dean whispers, " _wanna make out_?"

Cas shoves him face-down into the sleeping bag to try and murder him a little, and when Dean has stopped breathing polyfill and cackling like a hyena, he takes Cas's face in his hands and says _I love you, I love you_ , and Cas kisses him like the end of the world is in nine minutes.

 

 

Much later, when they've gotten back and taken real showers and Dean has started noticing the eighty jillion new freckles plastered all over his arms, he is sitting in the kitchen with Sam, eating a cold lemon pie out of the fridge and waiting for Cas to come downstairs and save him from finishing the whole thing. Sam is talking about the trip he and Jess are taking in the fall, to Yosemite, and how awesome it would be if they all went, all four of them, and got a cabin and went on a wildlife hike and-

"If you say geocaching again," Dean says, through a mouthful of crust, "I'll drown myself." Sam scowls at him. "I have my limits, dude."

"Speaking of limits," Sam says, eyeing the pie. Dean curls a possessive arm around it, and whines about hiking fifty miles uphill both ways. "But really. You guys should come with us. Jess would love it."

"I'm up for it," Cas says, from the doorway. Dean turns to look at him. He's still damp-haired and a little sunburnt and his t-shirt is riding up where it's stuck to his wet stomach. It's unfairly erotic for being so normal. Sam smiles open-mouthed and happy, like an enormous brown dog filled with rainbows, and turns that fucking face on Dean. 

"Fine," Dean says, rolling his eyes. "Great. Sign me up. Camp Geocaching. Camp Granola. Camp Eaten By Bears." Sam and Cas laugh at him and then start talking about hot springs, waterfalls, some kind of ridiculous covered bridge. They go into the living room to look at maps on Sam's laptop, and Dean is left alone with his empty pie-plate and the paper bag of souvenirs he'd brought out to show Sam. He pulls the postcards out of the bag and fans them across the tabletop. Mountains and meadows and rocky cliffs. He stands up and picks his favorite one out of the pile. _Camp Mountaintop_ , he thinks. Camp Makeout.

"Dean," Cas calls. "Giant sequoias!"

"Camp Winchester," Dean says to himself, and puts a postcard on the fridge.

 

.

**Author's Note:**

> " _All my life I've been slow and senseless,_  
>  not struck dumb- I'm just dumb, that's all.  
> But I can give you the constellations,  
> lay down here and we'll count them all."  
> -Mike Doughty


End file.
